Fleshing Out Your Content Objectives

Guest Author - Jason Hodge

Prior to creating content, that is not only relevant to your audience but can be parlayed into a business builder, you’re going to want to know what you want your content to accomplish. In this article you will learn the process of fleshing out your content objectives to get the highest return on your investment of time and creativity.

1. What it is
A content objective is an idea of what you want your content to accomplish. It’s the beginnings of the blueprint you draft charting where you want to go, the timeframe you’re looking at and the ‘How’ involved. Content itself takes on many forms. It can be an article, podcast, blog, appearance, video broadcast, an interview, webinar, seminar or teleseminar, etc. It’s virtually limitless, so your first agenda is figuring out what you want to take place in order to pattern the right content to fit the bill.

2. Why you need it
Without an objective to your content you’re unable to chart your course using it as a powerful tool. I’ve told clients numerous times that, “It’s not what you know that makes you famous and in demand; it’s who knows you who know others that can put you on their platforms to share what you know and establish your credibility to their masses and yours.” The cemeteries are full of geniuses that would eclipse Einstein’s abilities, but you’ve just never heard of them… neither has anyone else, so they left this life unknown and probably never fulfilled their potential. Their circle of influence wasn’t great enough to develop a following and compel their audiences to take the action necessary to catapult them to success. The right content with the right strategic placement can create the platform and celebrity you and your brand need.

3. How you do it
Creating content will probably be the easiest thing you’ll ever do. Here’s what I mean… you create content every day, all day; so your focus should not be on “creating” content, but rather capturing the content you naturally create and finding out what package it needs to be in for your audience[s]. YouTube, iTunes, WordPress, Flicker, the article sites, television and radio are full of stories where folks took the content that was staring them in the face and packaged it right to fit the platforms of their audience. Success!!!

You can do the exact same thing. You’re just as qualified, if not more, than the ones you see, hear and/or read about. All you need is your big picture, your list of what content can help you achieve your big picture and a strategy in place to make your content work on your behalf and make great things happen.

3 things to do now:

Figure out what your ‘big picture’ is. [ex: build your business, open professional doors, meet more people, get more clients, etc.]

Design the content and types that will support your vision [ex: quick videos to put up on YouTube, some blog posts about you and your business, press releases highlighting an event you’ll be attending that you can connect to you and your services with a newsworthy angle] and

Determine where it strategically needs to be placed for the greatest credibility-building, audience buy-in and response. [ex: Twitter.com, EzineArticles.com, Flicker.com, Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, your local newspaper, radio or television programming, etc.]

All in all fleshing out your content objectives can be or easy or difficult, depending on your starting point and the process of your approach. You can go the route of trying to “create” content, or you can create the process you’ll use to capture & package what’s always been there to attract and build your audience, and ultimately your business.